Fireheads
by The Bride of Bronn
Summary: A series of 50 themes conveying Laurie and Rorschach's dynamics through a sentence. AU. A 1sentence challenge from LJ


**FANDOM:** WATCHMEN  
**PAIRING: **Rorschach/Silk Spectre II [Walter Kovacs x Laurie Juspeczyk]  
**THEME SET:** Gamma Theme  
**RATING:** T [and maybe M on some parts]  
**WARNING[S]:** Some may include innuendos but they're mostly harmless  
**NOTES:** The title is inspired by the Emiliana Torrini song. This is dedicated to **FINDMYANTIDRUG** whose Laurschach fanfiction has been like a tattoo in my mind. Cross-posted to **1SENTENCE**, **WATCHDOM**, and **WATCHFIC_DIR**

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**FIREHEADS**

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01 **RING**

"You're not really as tough as you may think, freak," the Silk Spectre _whore_ says and Rorschach could only watch her with utter vehemence as she puffs out a halo of smoke directly at his face.

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02 **HERO**

Laurie once heard Rorschach describe the Comedian as the hero of all heroes and she agreed because she wanted him to think she was cool; and in that awful moment—and probably their last—they connected.

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03 **MEMORY**

Rorschach hates to admit that some of the gaps that didn't make sense in the past had something to do with what he _felt_ about the second Silk Spectre then; and the desperation of figuring out what it was.

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04 **BOX**

Laurie had been fixated with the photograph of the Watchmen, particularly on the tiny man on the edge who never belonged there; so she cuts him out but places it inside her old music box for safe-keeping.

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05 **RUN**

On their first patrol night together, Silk Spectre rescued Rorschach from would-be assailants, screaming for him to get the fuck out of there as if she never needed him at all, and that wounded him somehow.

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06 **HURRICANE**

Laurie grabbed onto Rorschach's coat as he led them through the suffocating swarm of reporters and cameras, of protesters with picket signs, all pleading for their surrender—and Rorschach shouts, "NEVER!"

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07 **WINGS**

She sat this close because they were alone now and he wasn't trying to get away anymore; there was a hollowness in her chest that betrayed her as her fingers caressed a butterfly in the mask he called a face.

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08 **COLD**

She didn't stop scraping off the scarlet imprint in the snow until it doesn't look like his face anymore.

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09 **RED**

"No need to be embarrassed, not your fault if your time of the month caught up with you while on patrol; (cough) brought you the, um, napkin you asked for, took me a great deal of trouble to, uh, get this…"

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10 **DRINK**

Rorschach pulled the hem of his mask just above his lips to take a sip of ginger tea; and the careless exposure of his flesh rattled Laurie in a way her sixteen-year old mind has yet to understand or name.

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11 **MIDNIGHT**

Laurie was lying next to Dan with their costumes rotting in sweat and nostalgia underneath them when she glanced at Ozymandias, mighty in his despair, and asked him why Rorschach couldn't stay.

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12 **TEMPTATION**

He offered to fix her broken heel and she would've refused if he wasn't already kneeling in front of her, with his purple-gloved hand on her ankle, and he almost looked like Prince Charming in this angle—_almost_.

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13** VIEW**

"I know you're not the biggest fan of womankind but could you _please_ stop calling every girl you come across a whore 'cause you're gonna get killed with that petty perception of yours _if I don't kill you myself_!"

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14 **MUSIC**

Neither is ever sure how to begin the dance but they give in to the rhythm anyway.

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15 **SILK**

She needed to be mysterious, like something that could easily slip between his fingers.

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16 **COVER**

Rorschach envied that the world never seems to end for Silk Spectre; and that she doesn't even know it.

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17 **PROMISE**

"Never surrender, not even in the face of Armageddon," he tells her as he hands her the Comedian's gun.

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18 **DREAM**

It shouldn't be real between them but the ghost of her still clings in his most harrowing places.

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19 **CANDLE**

Inside a dim-lit motel room somewhere, Laurie still refused to trust Rorschach even after he stitched her wounds clean; even as he watched her all night, and the shadows in his mask no longer terrified her.

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20 **TALENT**

Silk Spectres have a knack for loving men as if they have never been broken by one before.

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21 **SILENCE**

There are cracks in her universe where the lies used to be until he invaded though every single one of them.

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22 **JOURNEY**

Her lips linger on his freckles every excruciating second; like they were dots on the map that was Walter Kovacs that she had to connect for the both of them; just to prolong what was merely transient to begin with.

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23 **FIRE**

Walter Kovacs glided around the burning prison cells, inhaling the deaths of the filth around him when he looked up to see Silk Spectre jumping off the Owl Ship: a murderous phoenix of the ashen skies.

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24 **STRENGTH**

Silk Spectre peels off her costume in front of him and presses her weight against him like he was the most brittle thing she ever had, and while their breathing matched _perfectly_, it feels like nothing could ever end.

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25 **MASK**

Walter realized too late that he wasn't wearing his face anymore so when Silk Spectre glared at him—she penetrated through—and it was painfully hot all of a sudden with nowhere else to hide this time.

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26 **ICE**

All he did was to touch her once and it was already enough to make her thaw from all the traces Jon left.

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27 **FALL**

"Do you have to be a _monster_ and throw a man down an elevator shaft like that—_god_, Rorschach!"

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28 **FORGOTTEN**

He was meant to be intact only once while the rest of him is gutted and scooped hollow.

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29 **DANCE**

He trained the sixteen-year old non-stop so she'll be ready for a street fight; he warned that gangs attack all at once, so it was strange when thugs simply took turns with her like it's some sadomasochistic tango.

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30 **BODY**

Walter spends his days in the garment shop cutting through dresses, turning them into pantsuits, cardigans, polo shirts, _goddamn mittens even_, just to make sure none of them will resemble a woman anymore.

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31 **SACRED**

Intoxicated and feeling like a fat excuse for a heroine, Laurie crashed into Rorschach, lowered herself to the ground, grabbed him by the waistband of his pinstriped pants, and unzipped him for worship.

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32 **FAREWELLS**

He stares into the barrel of the Comedian's gun she had pointed at him and pleads, "Do it."

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33 **WORLD**

Her sudden breakdowns reminded him how the city was always quick to open its heart to him, how the core's festered with disease yet he never turned away; how he feels like saving it—_save her_—every time.

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34 **FORMAL**

Rorschach was the only one who never mispronounced her name the first time she wrote it down for everyone to see; but he still addressed her as "Ms. Jupiter" anyway, and almost defensively at times.

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35 **FEVER**

As she stitches him up, Walter—not Rorschach—peers at her accusingly like no touch of hers leaves him unscathed; he hates the way she chuckled when her fingers probed and explored, cauterizing him in sin.

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36 **LAUGH**

"Heard a joke once," Rorschach begins but Laurie says she knows a good one too—and then she kisses him; when she pulled away smirking, he wasn't sure what the punchline was to _that _joke but he didn't care.

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37 **LIES**

Not a lot of things can make the Silk Spectre cry.

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38 **FOREVER**

They leave many things unsaid because putting them in words is destructive it might dismantle them.

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39 **OVERWHELMED**

Laurie hates how in costume she's unmasked and he isn't; he could be staring and she wouldn't know.

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40 **WHISPER**

He pops a sugar cube to his mouth and, as the wrapper drops to the floor soundlessly, he takes Laurie by the throat, pins her hard against the wall, and then his breath was all over her, sweet and foreboding.

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41 **WAIT**

The movement of her fingertips above his knee was like a spider—expanding—shrinking—until the fingers are going up his thigh—stroking—fumbling—he just lets those fingers linger, his patience never wavered.

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42 **TALK**

The Crimebusters were playing truth and dare; and when it was Rorschach's turn to tell the truth, Laurie, in a condescending, motherly tone asks, "Didn't anyone ever tell you which parts go in and fit together?"

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43 **SEARCH**

"I must do this. Wherever a lead is going to take me, I'll go," Rorschach tells Laurie one last time and she didn't stop him; neither of them understood back then what awaits him if he kept seeking Blair Roche.

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44 **HOPE**

It would seem that the second Silk Spectre was the ever-florescent incarnation of the darkness in his being.

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45 **ECLIPSE**

Rorschach knew there was no hope looking at the stars but he still stared at the nakedness that was Laurie Juspeczyk, knowing she burned ages ago and all he's seeing now are just snapshots of who she was.

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46 **GRAVITY**

The first time Jon teleported Rorschach was because Laurie was mad at him; so she had him teleported from New York to Africa, then back to New York in under two minutes—he didn't talk to her for a year.

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47 **HIGHWAY**

When she flew Archie for the first time, Silk Spectre almost crashed them into skyscrapers and other aircraft; but neither Nite Owl nor Rorschach cared because that was also the first time she got them drunk.

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48 **UNKNOWN**

Rorschach seems to alternate between feeling little and feeling too much whenever she's around.

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49 **LOCK**

Not one to hold his liquor well, Nite Owl pulled Rorschach and Laurie into the most uncomfortable group hug of the century which took both of them six tries to disentangle from (but Rorschach wasn't _really_trying).

* * *

50 **BREATHE**

After Rorschach rescues Laurie from drowning, he pounds on her diaphragm until she spits out the water; and as she glares at the man who saved her life, she says, "Ever heard of a mouth-to-mouth, JACKASS?"


End file.
